Stephen Murray
Living in San Francisco, CA
Total page views: 55,307
Published Content: 202
Fans: 21
On AC since: 03.29.07
Bio:
San Franciscan from rural southern Minnesota, I have traveled widely and have done fieldwork in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Thailand, Taiwan, and the US
San Franciscan from rural southern Minnesota, I have traveled widely and have done fieldwork in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Thailand, Taiwan, and the US
Education/Experience:
PhD University of Toronto in sociology, Berkeley postdoc in anthropology, with an undergraduate major in "Justice, Morality, and Constitutional Democracy" (try putting that into a small box on a form!)
PhD University of Toronto in sociology, Berkeley postdoc in anthropology, with an undergraduate major in "Justice, Morality, and Constitutional Democracy" (try putting that into a small box on a form!)
Motto:
Mo dang kang
Mo dang kang
Affiliations:
American Sociological Association
American Anthropological Association
Showing Results 1 - 200 of 202
Sociology student Karim has difficulty finding gay Arabs willing to be filmed. One who is, Farid, is sure Karim would be gay if he followed his heart, and leads him to Marrakesh.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/11/2009
Youssef, the titular "Secret Son" in Laila Lalami's accomplished second novel lacks a father and any sense of belonging to what is the most important unit in Moroccan society, a family. That and other yearnings of young Moroccans are perilously thwarted.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2009
McKnight draws on the tensions of his background as a black boy (military brat) in mostly white schools and as an ethnographer in Senegal in a novella and four stories
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/5/2009
Lalami's novel begins with 30 Moroccan emigres dumped into the water off the Spanish coast, then provides backstories of four and shows their lives a few years later.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/5/2009
Speaking about lower-class Moroccans not being "authorized" to speak about realities in any language, Abdellah Taia confirmed that his novel SALVATION ARMY is autobiographical in all is indecorous details.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/3/2009
An inventory in bankruptcy proceedings of 1656 provided a guide to outfitting the home/workplace Rembrandt occupied from 1639 to 1658. The house also displays many Rembrandt etchings.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/28/2009
Heir to collections of the Colonial Institute, the Tropenmuseum has especially notable stuff from Indonesia and Surinam (and includes more than former Dutch colonies).
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/21/2009
Imamura's first movie in color (shot by Himeda Shinsaku, starring Ken Ogata) is shot and scored as a neo-noir about a killer who eluded a national manhunt for 78 days in 1963-64.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/18/2009
Ever interested in sex and the Japanese underclass, Imamura made a long movie about and overworked skin-flick maker, the spoiled younger generation, and gangsters (yakusa), "Jinruigaku nyumon."
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/16/2009
Imamura's breakout 1961 movie set in the Red Light District near a US naval base ca. 1954 shows hysterical gangsters and a resilient young woman
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/12/2009
The Sofitel Amsterdam The Grand offers many amenities, recently remodeled rooms in the center of Amsterdam... and sewer gas!
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2009
The El Paso Airport Winham Hotel has great location for transportation, but not for restaurant choice, with big waterslide inside and big equestrian statue just outside
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/6/2009
The Villa Mexicana Lodge in Creel, Chihuahua provides comfortable cabins that only look rustic: they include flat-panel tvs and striking terrain.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/28/2009
Central location in the city from which people take the eastbound Copper Canyon train, with a much-needed pool.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/28/2009
Resigned to being raped, Sadako plots suicide, murder, litigation and seems to prevail by the end (which is a long time after the beginning IMO!)
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/20/2009
Four of the seven stories in Reginald McKnight's second collection succeed in my estimation.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/31/2009
A review of the earthy 1963 Imamura Shohei movie "Nippon konchuki," aka "Insect Woman," an unjudgmental look at the life and hard times of a woman played supberly by Hidari Sachiko
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/14/2009
The leitmotif was establishing quasi-families and/or making connections skipping a generation.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/1/2009
"Boy" does not denote someone aged less than eighteen. Even the connotation of being a specific age is often not intended and often not understood as being meant.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/24/2009
Peter Morgan imagined the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from their 1983 arrival in Parliament until Blair became Labour Party leader in 1994.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/3/2009
Capsule reviews and ratings of 25 movies I watched during June.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/1/2009
The Democratic Congress and President have been pretending to be waiting for the other to act on repeal of DOMA, DADT, ENDA, etc.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/28/2009
Reginald McKnight's Heinz-Award-winning MOUSTAPHA'S ECLIPSE included in the US and in West Africa
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/21/2009
Raises the question of the failures of a Democratic legislative and executive branch to advance equal rights and insulting DOJ briefs.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/18/2009
Capsule reviews and ratings of many French, English, Johnnie To, and 2008 movies
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/1/2009
A syrupy Taiwanese teen love triangle movie takes a sharp turn in the #1 boxoffice movie in Mandarin from 2007.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/26/2009
Some found the desperately eager-to-please farce "Death at a Funeral" very funny; it met resistance from me.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/21/2009
A non-fiction film shot in the Sahara, East Africa, and Carnary Islands by the young Werner Herzog provides images and sounds but no thesis or narrative.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/20/2009
Slow-paced somewhat comic portrayal of daughters to marry off in changing postwar Japan with the Ozu repertory company.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/16/2009
Some undersung and some overrated movies I watched last month. I especially recommend the character-driven "The Visitor" and "Me and You and Everyone We Know."
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/4/2009
Schell writes about Hollywood romanticization of Tibet and about his observations of the making of "7 Years in Tibet"
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/19/2009
Vignettes of a group of white workers and mostly black children in a Winston-Salem NC summer
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/15/2009
A black-and-white set of vignettes of the black inner-city LA family of a weary slaughterhouse worker may be "poetic" but bored me.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/15/2009
A "slice of life" in south-central LA movie with nonprofessional actors confronting class differences between blacks.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/5/2009
Like other "paranoid thrillers," the fear of the man on the lam is not paranoid in this story of love and loss, revenge and redemption.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/5/2009
I found the 1975 Fassbinder movie "Fear of Fear" tedious, though not as annoying as some Fassbinder films (or as inspired as some other ones).
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/22/2009
Review of the the ghoulish comedy about a child soldier in West African civil wars, "Allah Is Not Obliged" by Ahmadou Kouroum.
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/18/2009
Review of the 1885 roman à clef "L'oeuvre" by Émile Zola showing the agonies of trying to "make it new" in art (in Paris of the preceding decades).
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/9/2009
Review of Pulitizer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks's first novel, a road farce centering on a pregnant 16-year-old.
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/8/2009
In some ways one of a series of movies in which Sidney Poitier played Super Negro, the 1966 "Duel at Diablo" remarked on that not at all (showing, not telling).
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/1/2009
Set in medieval Japan, Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece "Ran" (1985) showcases an extraordinary performance as a Lear figure by Nakadai Tatsuya and stunning visual compositions (plus blood and action).
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/28/2009
The tv adaptation of about his surrogate mother in an upstate New York black community of the 1950s more than opens up Ruben Santiago-Hudson's play "Lackawanna Blues."
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/28/2009
Review of Kasi Lemmons's 1997 debut film, "Eve's Bayou," and her 1998 offshoot "Dr. Hugo," both involving adultery by a black physician viewed if not understood by young black girls.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/25/2009
Film-makers Jon Shenk and Megan Mylan followed two Dinka youths, Peter and Santino, from a Kenyan refugee camp to trying to get along in the US.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/16/2009
A harrowing tale of genocide, fighting back as a child soldier, and seeking redemption through helping other orphaned Sudanese.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/14/2009
Aimé Césaire's 1969 play rushes through most of Shakespeare's plots and characterization to a denunciation by Caliban of insidious colonilization of seeing himself as brutish and inferior.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/13/2009
The hows and whys of Andean consumption of coca leaves.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/12/2009
"Cape No. 7" (Cape No. 7Hái jiao ci hao), a romance/rock band/romantic melodrama) is the highest grossing film ever produced in Taiwan.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/2/2009
Rodes Fishburne's first novel seems like a not-very-updated comedy about newspaper scoops, political corruption, and thwarted romance from an earlier era.
By Stephen Murray | Published 1/4/2009
An iron-willed aging ex-sheriff played by Randolph Scott surviving to a sought-for day of reckoning in the Wild West.
By Stephen Murray | Published 1/3/2009
A great comic novel by a Czech eager to make money to buy sex -- and the tumult of 1935-1950 in Czechoslovakia.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/30/2008
Finding a similar array of characters in Casablance (1943) and Anne of a Thousand Days, produced 26 years later by Hal Wallis.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/27/2008
Review of Kenzaburo Oe's novel set mostly in California and Mexico, but very Japanese in psycholocy, An Echo of Heaven.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/27/2008
Sedaris's observations of the world and his place(s) in it make me smile and sometimes laugh out loud.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/22/2008
Shakespeare's last great play is firmly established in the canon. The magic and the revenge-mercy plot are overshadowed now by the Prosper-Caliban colonizer/colonized relationship.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/20/2008
Humphreys's debut novel, set in her native Charleston, portrays a mother who cannot cope with her young children, her gynecologist husband who no longer loves her, his best friend and more.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/19/2008
Four Parisians are witnesses of newcomer Manu's summer of love and AIDS death. Imperfect characters go on, trying to be kinder and better human beings.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/18/2008
Full House Seafood Restaurant offers exceptionally friendly service (to newcomers) with reasonably priced dim sum dishes streaming from the kitchen.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/12/2008
Pretty good breakfast, very clean rooms, WiFi and keycard problems, freeway access (I-210) make the Quality Inn not a bad choice of Pasadena motels.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/12/2008
This old motel provided good-enough accommodations in a great Santa Monica location (between the Pier and the Promenade).
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/12/2008
The highly-stylized, severely black-and-white romanticization of seppuku by Yukio Mishima was beautifully photographed by Kimio Watanabe, but I am strongly repelled by it.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/10/2008
"Johan" is is a combination of cinema verité, home movies, and metafiction, with some graphic same-sex sex scenes, augmented by a 2006 bonus return to the project by Phillippe Vallois.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/8/2008
Despite being generally clever, sometimes funny, and intricately constructionted, comprehending the sentences and allusions isn't worth the effort. The collection is recommended only to hardcore Nabokov fans who have exhausted his earlier work.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/7/2008
The madness herein is not as epic as in some later Herzog movies, but that subject matter and the extensive scrutiny of the alien enviroment are fully Herzogian. And a remote locale is beautifully photographed.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/7/2008
Review of LA Philharmonic Nov. 2008 performance of Ligetti's "Atmospherics," Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, and Strauss's "4 Last Songs" with Christine Brewer, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/2/2008
Pre-Columbian artifacts in two national museums, two private collections, and the Peruvian federal reserve's collection in Lima
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/24/2008
A very talky play about a family in which the sons have risen from working-class origins. The picture is soft and Alan Bates is way over the top.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/21/2008
Neglected American master James Purd's ery funny, shimmering prose supports an entertaining and poignant picaresque plot in this novel.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/19/2008
Divisiadero is anti-narrative book (though there are compelling stories in it and some brilliant set pieces) that makes Ondatjee's earlier books seem almost linear in comparison.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/18/2008
"La Terre" is of interest for location shooting 80 years ago, "Nana" for the failed starmaking of Anna Sten, "TR) for la SIgnoret suffering, melting, suffering more
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/17/2008
A concise amusing illustrated fictional memoir of a basketball-playing adolescent half-Indian orphan male's tumultuous path to acceptance of himself
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/16/2008
Clearly written, modest, interesting material about a much loved novelist's early life that is not very revealing.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/16/2008
An account of a far-from-pleasant two week birding trip in northern (non coastal, alas) Peru.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/13/2008
An impregnable Chachapoyan fortress on and Andean ridge begun in the ninth century and a newish nearby lodge.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/12/2008
A very modern museum putting the Chachapoya culture in historical perspective with a de facto botanical garden.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/11/2008
An immaculately clean hotel with fast Internet connections in central Chiclayo, the largest city in northern Peru.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/11/2008
Lino Ventura plays a weary criminal on the run, aided by an about-to-be-discovered Jean Paul Belmondo
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/11/2008
As confusing as "The Big Sleep," and far more bleak in its view of human nature, "Les Doulos" is dark even for cinema noir
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/11/2008
Just completed in 2007, the Abra Patricia Lodge is an impressive new ecotourism site in the foothills of the Andes--the Peruvian Yungas.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2008
A massive, state-of-the art museum as much about the archeology as about the finds in Mochica royal tombs
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2008
A frightening road over mountain passes down and up the Marañon gorge between Celendin and Leymebamba.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2008
Cumbe Mayo is a striking rock formation as well as a site of an ancient aqueduct and petroglyphs; the Vantanillas are empty niches in a sandstone cliff
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2008
A museum opened in 2001 with a lot of gold and some macabre burial practices on display.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2008
Not a "war film," the 1951 Samuel Goldwyn production "I Want You" shows "home front" anguish about young men being called up to fight in Korea.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/10/2008
Raised in San Francisco, Aaron Wolf became a paratrooper in the Israeli army. His insightful memoir remains all-too-timely
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/9/2008
An absurdist, mock-heroic novel by Iceland's Nobel Prize laureate, Halldór Laxness'
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/9/2008
150 minutes of documentary-style portrayal of French cops and robbers
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/1/2008
Electricity! a nice pool, cable tv, and a chifa
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/31/2008
A mosaic novel of the final years of United Fruit Company dominance of Cuba and the revolution aborning in the mountains of Cuba.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/29/2008
With outstanding performances by Glenn Close, Zeljko Ivanek (both earned Emmies), and Ted Danson, this legal drama has fascinating plotlines centering on a class-action lawsuit against a magnate who sold his company's stock just before it collapsed.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/28/2008
The "surge" in Iraq was supposed to provide time for national reconciliation. Reducing violence was a means to that end, not the end. The theocratic Shi'ite government is now ready for the US troops to get out of the way.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2008
A brilliiant, intrepid, and alcoholic scientist battles his alocholism, his commanders, and an insidious new booby trap being dropped by the Germans.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/23/2008
The only large motel within Point Reyes National Seashore, the Golden Hinde has beach, pool marina, and a Thai restaurant.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/19/2008
Begun by Giotto in 1334, completed by Franceso Talenti in 1359, the bell tower of the cathedral in Florence (Firenzi) remains the marvel that the Hapsburg empero rCharles V said should be kept under glass. The carvings on it now are!
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/18/2008
Less well-known than the Cathedral and Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella is the church in Florence (Firenzi) with the most important Renaissance paintings.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/18/2008
Discussion of various causes of reduction of violence in Iraq and of what to do in Afghanistan
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/7/2008
The oldest public building in Florence (Firenzi) houses masterpieces by Cellini, Donatello, Michelangelo, et al.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/27/2008
Built on the burial spot of the martyred patron saint of Paris, the Basilica of St. Denis is a formidable Gothic edifice with the tombs of most French monarchs from 10th through 18th centuries.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/26/2008
The building reopened in 2001 shows off about three thousand artistic treasures from Asia at a time. It is just above the Iena subway station.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/26/2008
I don't think that San Francisco has many outstanding Thai restaurants. The mother of them all, the Racha Cafe, was bought by the owners of Thai BBQ and ruined.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/22/2008
The promises made for increased freedom (both for Chinese and for foreign reporters) to get the Olympics to go to Beijing have been broken, but W is going to kowtow to the owners of much of the national debt he has run up.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/4/2008
In addition to having the only van Gogh painting on public display in Provence, teh Angladon has very unusual Chinese art and oustanding paintings by Vuillard, Modigliani, and Sisley (and much else)
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/10/2008
The Hotel Nice Riviera is neither a bargain nor a deluxe hotel. it is clean, has a friendly staff, and exorbitant Internet-access charges (as do all the other hotels in the south of France in which we stayed).
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/10/2008
We found the Bristol Hotel a pleasant and convenient place to stay for visiting Avignon, and as a base for side trips in the south of France interior.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/10/2008
Hazzards's memoir "Greene on Capri" is a discerning portrait of a monster (of self-loathing) as close to repose as he got.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/7/2008
There is much more to Aix than its open-air flower market: Cezanne sites; art by Cezanne, Modigliania and others, churches, and the local delicacy, calisson.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/1/2008
Review of "The Story of a Marriage" and a book tour appearance by Andrew Sean Greer
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/20/2008
Report of a two-night stay at the Campanille Hotel across from Terminal 3 of the Nice Airport, adjacent to Parc Phoenix and the Arenas complex.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/12/2008
Rousillon has a great vistas, a lot of restaurants and galleries, and was a major source of ochre since the times of the Roman Empire.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/9/2008
With Lawrence Tierney in the title role, the 1947 movie provided a brisk and lethal cocktail of black comedy, an escaping criminal, and some very bad judgment about hitchiking.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/5/2008
Along with France's largest spring, there is much of cultural as well as scenic interest in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/2/2008
Account of author appearances and Q&A of Michael Chabon and Michael Ondatjee in San Francisco
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/29/2008
The 1927 sequel to the 1927 novel about a British incarnation of the Swiss poet is as chaste as the first book is filled with debauchery.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/29/2008
Along with Anhouil and Giradoux, Montherlant was esteemed as a supplier of grandiloquent historical plays in France during the 1940s. "Master" centers on self-sacrifice -- that of a man who has lived his life and of his daughter who has not.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/28/2008
LaCoste, a Protestant village in the south of France, site of a 16th-century massacre, and later parties by the Marquis de Sade and Pierre Cardin.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/28/2008
Infamous for delays and canceled flights, ORD has amenities more US airports should have.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/19/2008
Hanslip makes me like the John Adams concerto more than Gidon Kremer did, particularly in the Chaconne. She plays with great lyricisim throughout the disc.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/18/2008
A reasonable and reasonably laid-out hotel room within walking distance of Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Pompidou Center, etc.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/7/2008
A review of Montherlant's play "La ville dont le prince est un enfant"/"Fire That Consumes" with comparison of text to screen adaptation (available on DVD) with some thoughts about interest in authors vs. interest in their writings.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/7/2008
One of the best US beaches, plus a historic lighthouse, just offshore from downtown Miami and I-95.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/14/2008
An institution popular with Cuban exiles and tourists since 1971 in the heart of Miami's "Little Havana" continues to please many palettes.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/10/2008
Immaculately clean, large rooms in a new hotel in which the staff is eager to make guest stays pleasant.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/10/2008
Thousands of protestors and celebrants were disappointed by collusion to prevent visible protest of the Genocide Olympics.
By Stephen Murray | Published 4/10/2008
Review of Alice Adams's Mexico: Some Travels and Some Travelers There. Highlights include Oaxaca, Zihuatanejo, and a Frida Kahlo pilgramage.
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/21/2008
A biopic of Irish writer Sean O'Casey showcased soon-to-be stars Julie Christie and Maggie Smith along with an unconvincing already-established star, Rod Taylor.
By Stephen Murray | Published 3/18/2008
Envisioned as a libretto rather than a play with spoken lines.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/23/2008
The site of artillery batteries during WWII, Fort Funston is now dominated by hang-gliders and people loosing their dogs (and seeing whose dogs their dogs find). It is also one of two places in California where cliff swallows breed in the summer.
By Stephen Murray | Published 2/23/2008
Arguably a piano concerto rather than a symphony, Bernstein's second symphony is a major musical accomplishment.
By Stephen Murray | Published 1/27/2008
Neither intimate nor romantic, the Hawaiian Monarch is clean, reasonably priced and staffed, and a good value.
By Stephen Murray | Published 1/16/2008
Explanation of the two sites most requiring visits in Split, Croatia - the shrines to themselves of the Roman emperor Diocletian and the sculptor Ivan Mestrovich.
By Stephen Murray | Published 12/7/2007
The main city of Istria since ancient times, Pula has Roman arches, an amphitheater, and a temple... and a Mediterranean ambiance.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/23/2007
Positive evaluation of hotel Il Guercino and its breakfast buffet.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/23/2007
A review of the western (set and filmed in Mexico) 1972 film "The Wrath of God" starring Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, and the last screen appearance of Rita Hayworth.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/22/2007
Rejected (not without good reasons) by hardcore wuxia film fans, there are other kinds of entertainment supplied by Jet Li and the rest of a fine cast in "Romeo Must Die," directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak in 2000.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/21/2007
Review of am immediately post-Cold War portrayal of the business of terrorism, with a very nasty supervillain who woudn't be out of place as a James Bond antagonist seeking world domination.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/20/2007
A review of Incident at Loch Ness " (2004), written and directed by Zak Penn, starring Werner Herzog as a version of himself.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/20/2007
A comedy of ghastly manners savagely satirizing Italian machismo mores.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/20/2007
"Sopyonje," (also romanized as "Seopyeonje") a 1993 film directed by Im Kown-Taek is a tearjerker about the hard lot of itinerant entertainers, reminiscent of some heartbreaking Chinese clasics.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/20/2007
Review of a documentary mostly consisting of the reclusive Cartier-Bresson looking at pictures a few years before his death: a great slide show without any great revelations other than that the "decisive moment" involved choice from multiple images.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/20/2007
Review of the 1959 biopic about the life of drummer Gene Krupa from 1927 to 1944 (rise and fall and comeback) also starring James Darren as the best friend.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/20/2007
Showing the burning oil fields, mute Kuwaitis, and seeming space alien firefighters, Herzog drew no lessons.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/17/2007
An overview of what there is to see in Hvar, Croatia, an limestone island in the Adriatic Sea.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/16/2007
An overview of the notable buildings that led to Trogir being named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/12/2007
Review of James Purdy's short (1976) novel In a Shallow Grave about a disfigured veteran in the American South.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/5/2007
Three great ones: Brotherhood of War, Pork Chop Hill, Steel Helmet
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/2/2007
Not as good as Fuller's "Steel Helmet" from earlier in 1951, "Fixed Bayonets" has impressive snowscapes and performances by Richard Basehart and Gene Evans.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/2/2007
Made while bullets were still flying in Korea, Sam Fuller made a poignant and pointed movie about racism, (in)competence, and US infantrymen's solidarity.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/1/2007
A wide-ranging, strong collection; displayed very (lighting, labeling, availability of seats); and with interesting and abundant seats.
By Stephen Murray | Published 11/1/2007
Dimly lit, minimally labeled, the Gardner's paintings by bonafide masters are not the artists' masterpieces (go two blocks to the FAM for those). Still, it has some antiquarian charm as a time capsule.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/31/2007
Highlights and logistics of the Arthur Sackler Museum, the Fogg Museum, and the Busch-Reisingerm, all on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/31/2007
The collection of the Downeast Heritage Museum in Calais, Maine is not sizable, but the museum is user-friendly, well-planned, with well-mounted exhibits and a river view
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/25/2007
The site of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida is a place for historical meditation, but lacking in any visible remains:There's nothing to do but gaze, since nothing is left of the 1604-05 settlement.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/25/2007
Across a bridge from Maine, Campobello Island is a rocky island in the Bay of Fundy where the Roosevelts summered--and where FDR's polio came on.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/16/2007
The dramatic Anthropology Museum at the coastal edge of the University of British Columbia showcases cedar carvings in particular along with a major collection of European ceramics.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2007
The end of the peninsula occupied by Vancouver, BC is a wooded park with lakes and trails and vistas of English Bay and the Strait of Georgia. This posting provides an overview of what there is to do and see in the park.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2007
Discusses some attractions in central Vancouver, British Columbia.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2007
Visiting the house Hawthorne made famous as well as the one in which he was born in Salem, MA.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2007
An overview of Walden Pond State Reservation, just outside Concor, MA
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/10/2007
Hawthorne's novel about a cursed family in a Salem (MA) mansion moves slowly, but is more readable than Thoreau or Emerson IMO.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/8/2007
The prose, the poetry, the organization, the self-congratulation in Thoreau's Great American Classic put me off.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/2/2007
The first National Park Service-run historic site is what was the commercial heart of New England trade. The visitor center sells tickets to the replica sailing ship on the dock and some of the historic buildings in the dock area.
By Stephen Murray | Published 10/1/2007
An overview of the state park of Castle Rock, arguing that it is a more interesting place to hike than in northern Santa Cruz County, (northern) California than Big Basin State Park is.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/25/2007
The San Francisco sister museum of the De Young, the one with European art is the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/22/2007
Borges wrote about unobscure authors and once upon a time wrote movie reviews
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/19/2007
This is a personal take on the sometimes frustrating but undeniably brilliant Argentine writer of the last century, a father of postmodernism very rooted in multiple cultural pasts, particularly English literature.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/19/2007
The experiences of Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic becoming defined by being Croatian and the absurdities of being defined as a succession of "others" in "The 25h Hour"
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/12/2007
Astronomers are human, all too human--especially gathered on a remote island in the South China Sea!
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/11/2007
A 20th-century Frankenstein story with far more horror than blood.
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/11/2007
Not sweetened as the food in many other Thai restaurants in the US is, and not fiery unless one asks for "spicy hot."
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/5/2007
Art, gardens, and observation tower
By Stephen Murray | Published 9/4/2007
A park for picnicking, hiking, and panoramic photography.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/20/2007
Free (though limited) parking, geology, golden eagles, and fresh air.
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/13/2007
Efficient service, reasonable prices, good food, parking, and getting the dishes we want are the reasons we keep returning to Dim Sum King just south of San Francisco, just off Skyline Blvd. (Highway 35)
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/9/2007
Now located in San Francisco's Civic Center, the Asian Art Museum well-displays an outstanding collection of Asian art (with a wide variety of special exhibitions).
By Stephen Murray | Published 8/3/2007
Near Crater Lake National Park, Oregon's Kimball state park is less scenic, but one can much more easily get to the water's edge.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/26/2007
The Witter Bynner House has become the Inn of the Turquoise Bear, providing extended continental breakfast,
late-afternoon wine and cheese receptions, top-flight amenities.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/22/2007
An immaculately clean, refurbished mid-19th-century hotel in Barcelona's Eixempla district.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/16/2007
Pecos National Historical Park is an important prehistoric, colonial, and Civil War site only 25 miles easy of
Santa Fe, New Mexico.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/16/2007
If one has to wait for more than an hour, one kilometer from the airport is not "convenient."
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/9/2007
review of Peter Matthiesen's The Birds of Heaven
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/9/2007
There's not a lot to do in Santeander except go to the beach
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/9/2007
Striking rock formations and views of lakes and the major California volcano.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/8/2007
Fishing, picnicking, percussing, bird-watching, and occasionally someone ventures into the water.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/8/2007
Not as indispensable as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the new Museum or Russian Art is a charming addition to the Minneapolis art museum scene in the former Mayflower Congregationalist Church.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/8/2007
A scenic state park on which Jack London used to live
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/8/2007
"Cow cave" was occupied 9000 years ago, when Fort Rock was an island surrounded by water, not sagebrush.
By Stephen Murray | Published 7/8/2007
Along with great location, service orientation, and spacious rooms, the Best Western lake View Lodge now has WiFi in the rooms
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/30/2007
Not bad, but not a destination.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/14/2007
If there was a US Supreme Court decision that turned the late Jerry Falwell into politics, it was Brown v. Topeka Board of Education (1954), not Roe v. Wade (1973).
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/8/2007
A good motel on the Arizona/California border.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/8/2007
Bridgeport, CA is mostly a staging area to go elsewhere, but has a photogenic 1880 court house and a 4-star restaurant in a house built in 1881.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/8/2007
A "Mobil gas mart" with bounteous and excellent food.
By Stephen Murray | Published 6/8/2007
Cookies and waffles and cold air.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/30/2007
Good motel set off by staff friendliness
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/25/2007
Two female icons in the same role on screen
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/22/2007
Mandalay offers more dishes that are at least as good as those prepared by Burma Star in a roomier, more pleasant atmosphere.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/22/2007
Half.com sometimes has better prices, but Amazon.com remains the Internet site to which buyers and sellers gravitate, because Amazon (sellers) offer more titles.
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/22/2007
recommendation for the Amador Country Inn
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/20/2007
Hotel Granada in downtown Panama City
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/20/2007
Blockbuster continues to be unable to re-establish its dominance of the by-mail DVD-rental business
By Stephen Murray | Published 5/20/2007
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